Explore Washington, D.C.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is a Smithsonian museum on the National Mall, opened in 2016 in a building designed by David Adjaye and Philip Freelon with a bronze-toned lattice facade. Its galleries trace African American history from slavery and the civil rights movement to music, sport and the arts.

The National Museum of American History is a Smithsonian museum on the National Mall, opened in 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology in a building by McKim, Mead & White. Its exhibitions cover the social, political, cultural, scientific and military history of the United States. Among the objects on display is the original Star-Spangled Banner.

The National Museum of Women in the Arts was founded by Wilhelmina and Wallace Holladay and opened in 1987 in a former Masonic Temple of 1908 on New York Avenue. Its collection of more than 6,000 works by women artists ranges from the 16th century to today, with works by Mary Cassatt, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Frida Kahlo.

Ford's Theatre opened in 1863 on 10th Street NW; on 14 April 1865 John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln here, and Lincoln died the next morning in the Petersen House across the street. Restored and reopened as a working theatre in 1968, it forms a historic site with a museum, the theatre and the President's Box, the Petersen House and exhibits on the aftermath.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the national memorial and museum of the Holocaust, opened in 1993 beside the National Mall in a building by James Ingo Freed. Its Permanent Exhibition documents the persecution and murder of Europe's Jews and other victims of Nazi Germany; the Hall of Remembrance is the memorial to the victims and survivors.

Planet Word is a museum of language that opened in 2020 in the Franklin School, an 1869 building by Adolf Cluss on Franklin Square. Its interactive galleries deal with how words are learned, where English words come from, the languages of the world, poetry, humour and the spoken word, and visitors speak or sign to take part.

The National Museum of Natural History is a Smithsonian museum on the north side of the National Mall, opened in 1910 in a Neoclassical building designed by Hornblower & Marshall. Its halls cover fossils and dinosaurs, ocean life, human origins, and gems and minerals, among them the Hope Diamond.

The National Museum of Asian Art is the Smithsonian's museum of Asian art on the south side of the National Mall. It joins the Freer Gallery of Art, opened in 1923, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, opened in 1987 and largely underground. Its collection runs from the Neolithic to today, with Chinese jades, Japanese ceramics, Islamic paintings and Whistler's Peacock Room.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum shares the Old Patent Office Building in Penn Quarter with the National Portrait Gallery. Its collection covers art made in the United States from the colonial period to today by more than 7,000 artists, and the glass-roofed Kogod Courtyard links the two museums.

The National Portrait Gallery is a Smithsonian art museum in the Old Patent Office Building, a Greek Revival block in Penn Quarter built between 1836 and 1867. Founded in 1962 and opened in 1968, it shows portraits of Americans who shaped the country, among them the Hall of Presidents with a portrait of every president.

The National Archives Museum occupies the National Archives Building on Constitution Avenue, designed by John Russell Pope and completed in the 1930s. Its Rotunda displays the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and further galleries show records from the nation's archives.

The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian's museum of traditional and contemporary art from across the African continent, founded on Capitol Hill in 1964 and part of the Smithsonian since 1979. Since 1987 it has occupied a mostly underground building beside the Enid A. Haupt Garden, entered through a domed pavilion on Independence Avenue.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is the Smithsonian's museum of modern and contemporary art on the National Mall, opened in 1974 around the collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. Gordon Bunshaft designed the raised concrete cylinder with a fountain in its inner courtyard; a sunken sculpture garden lies across Jefferson Drive.

The National Gallery of Art is an art museum on the National Mall, established by Congress in 1937 with the collection and funds of Andrew W. Mellon. John Russell Pope's neoclassical West Building shows European and American art from the Middle Ages on, I. M. Pei's East Building of 1978 holds modern art, and a sculpture garden lies beside them.

The International Spy Museum is a non-profit museum about the history and practice of espionage and intelligence work. It opened in 2002 in Penn Quarter and moved in 2019 to a new building by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners at L'Enfant Plaza. Its galleries show spy equipment, real cases and tradecraft from ancient times to the present, with interactive stations.

The National Air and Space Museum is the Smithsonian's museum of flight and space exploration on the National Mall, founded in 1946 and housed in a building opened in 1976. Its galleries show original aircraft and spacecraft, among them the 1903 Wright Flyer, Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and the Apollo 11 command module Columbia.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts stands on the east bank of the Potomac and opened in 1971 as the national cultural centre and a living memorial to President Kennedy. Edward Durell Stone designed the long marble building with its Concert Hall, Opera House and Eisenhower Theater; the REACH pavilions by Steven Holl were added in 2019.

The National Building Museum is a museum of architecture, engineering and urban design in the former Pension Building, a red-brick building completed in 1887 to designs by Montgomery C. Meigs. Its Great Hall, framed by eight giant Corinthian columns, has hosted presidential inaugural balls, and exhibitions fill the galleries around it.

The National Museum of the American Indian is the Smithsonian museum devoted to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, opened in 2004 at Fourth Street and Independence Avenue on the National Mall. Its curving building, clad in golden Kasota limestone, was designed by Douglas Cardinal. Exhibitions present objects, art and histories from across the hemisphere.

The Phillips Collection is an art museum near Dupont Circle, opened in 1921 by Duncan and Marjorie Phillips in his family's 1897 Georgian Revival house, later extended by two additions. The collection centers on Impressionist and modern art, including Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party and a room of paintings by Mark Rothko.